“Aspirin, dear. Two tablets will put you right.”

“Hum! Thanks. How did you sleep?”

“I slept all right while I was at it, but I feel I have slept only for five minutes. Coming along for breakfast later?”

“Er-no. I am going to snooze till lunch and try not to dream about this beastly dust-storm.”

“Till lunch, then?”

“Until lunch.”Martin essayed a laugh. “Sounds like a toast, doesn’t it? Confound Mulray! I hate spirits, but he would have me slip across to the hotel with him. He’s the kind of man who won’t be denied, and one can’t drink beer at a dance.”

His sister drew the curtains before the windows after standing for a moment to observe the swirling veil of dust without. Softly she left the room and passed to her own room where her maid waited with her morning-tea.

Between theseBorradales there existed a real and even affection. They had never been heard in the recrimination not unusual in this relationship. Martin was well set up, slimly athletic, twenty-seven; his sister was remarkably attractive, but yet not beautiful. She was several years her brother’s junior. Both were keen on horses and tennis. Both preferred to drive a fast trotting-horse to a car. Both were cultured, having attended Adelaide’s best schools, but a university had been denied Martin because of their father’s untimely death when the young man was barely twenty. It had necessitated his instant return to Wirragatta.

Having graduated, Stella gladly joined her brother to work in harness with him. Their mother having predeceased their father, the estate had been willed equally to them, but there had never been any suggestion that it should be realized and portioned.

So Martin had settled down to master the details of what is an exceedingly intricate business, and, like his father, he was succeeding remarkably well. He was fortunate in that for the first five years he had had an able mentor in his father’s overseer. Only after that canny Scot had died did the young man realize what he owed him and feel the weight of responsibility of which his shoulders, till then, had been relieved.